


The One Where Murray Tells Billy and Steve That They Need to Bang

by kittenmittens



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Because Billy Would Not Overcome His Shitty Upbringing in One Day, Homophobic Language, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post Season 3, Season 3 Spoilers, homophobic slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 06:52:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21114536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittenmittens/pseuds/kittenmittens
Summary: "They think, if they just keep arguing, nobody’ll ever notice the glaringly obvious, extremely horny elephant in the room. Which is that these two people—“ He jabs a finger at Hargrove, then does a 180 and jabs it at Steve. “—in this case, you, andyou—desperately,urgentlywant to fuck each other.”--Once again, Murray Bauman takes it upon himself to play match-maker.





	The One Where Murray Tells Billy and Steve That They Need to Bang

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure somebody's done this fic concept already, but I just had to get it out there in case they haven't!

The worst conversation of Steve’s life starts at one in the morning, halfway across the globe. He’s hiding in a freezing car with some random bald freak, and one cloned, buzz-cutted Billy Hargrove they may or may not have just busted out of a secret USSR lab. The rescue was an accident, by the way. Steve just wants to make that clear, because busting Billy Hargrove out of anywhere is not something Steve would do, _ever, _even before Hargrove turned into a commie Frankenstein.

They’re hiding from a bunch of soldiers that followed them out of the lab. Steve’s squashed shoulder-to-shoulder in the backseat with Hargrove, and the old guy’s crammed in the middle. Snow’s falling, it’s negative something degrees outside, and they’re holed up in a parking lot three blocks away from the secret base, in a rusted out, half-frozen truck with busted locks on the rear doors. All Steve was doing was telling Hargrove to shut the hell up because—what, did the fucking psycho _want _to go back to being a lab rat?—and Baldy completely lost his shit.

“Y’know, this is the third time. Third time_, _people!” There’s a puff of fog every time he says something, but he’s not stuttering or acting like he’s cold. Must be all the vodka. “I dunno, man. Maybe the universe hates me. Maybe it’s trying to—“ He claps his hands together and both Steve and Hargrove jump, Steve craning his neck over to the window to see if any of those flashlight beams are still waving around. “—_thrust _me into the role of matchmaker. Well, I’m tired of it! A man can only take so much romantic tension before he wants to blow his goddamn brains out.”

“Hey, man?” Leg bouncing on the seat, Steve turns his head so he can hiss through his teeth, “What in the shit are you talking about?”

“What I’m _talking _about, Steve, is…” The guy’s eyebrows go waaaaay up. “Oh. Steve.” Huh. So there’s a look. Yeah, Steve doesn’t like that smile one bit. “So _you’re _Steve.”

“Yep. You’re fucking Einstein. I’m Steve.” Is this important right now? Seriously, is it? Steve doesn’t know this dickweed’s name, even though they just spent the last twenty-four-hours running around another secret Russian base together. Finding out his name wasn’t as important to Steve as, say, not getting his head blown off, but hey. He’s _normal._

“If you two don’t _fucking cram it _in the next two seconds, I’m gonna lose my shit.” Oh, so Hargrove’s listening. Great. “You got that, Harrington? I’m gonna rip you to _fucking _pieces.”

“As I was SAYING, _boys,” _the guy goes on, shouting so Hargrove’s insane asylum acceptance speech gets drowned out. Steve checks again for search lights, but doesn’t see anything. Which, honestly, kind of sucks, because he’d rather get dragged out of the car and have a bunch of soldiers beat the shit out of him. It’d be better than listening to whatever Chrome Dome’s trying to tell him. “It’s exhausting. It’s unbelievable. Maybe it’s some kind of divine punishment? Some kind of… lower level of hell—where, _once again, _I’m stuck between two hormonal basket-cases who think arguing with each other non-stop is just _such a good idea_.” With a shrug, he grabs at his knees, squeezing and un-squeezing his fingers. “I mean, maybe it is, right? That way nobody’ll ever notice the glaringly obvious, extremely horny elephant in the room. Which is that these two people—“ He jabs a finger at Hargrove, then does a 180 and jabs it at Steve. “—in this case, you, and _you—_desperately, _urgently_ want to fuck each other.”

For the first time all night, Steve thinks he and Hargrove are on the same page. They look at each other in total shock, too knocked on their asses to think of anything to say. Hargrove gets over that hump faster, grinning some sick grin at the old man_. _“Eheheh. You fucked in the head or something? Do I _look_ like a fag to you?”

Steve kicks Hargrove as hard as he can in the shin, and Hargrove snaps his teeth like a dog, jerking like he wants to jump over Baldy and rip Steve’s head off. Steve does this whiny, mumbly, ‘I’m soooo scared’ at him before actually talking for real. “Yeah, that’s—l-listen, it’s cool if you’re gay. Or… know gay people. I know, uh—I’ve… met. My friend is…” Steve clears his throat. “Uh. Point is, it’s _totally cool_ if you’re gay, but I’m not. And neither is Hargrove. Pretty sure he’s banged every woman over forty in Hawkins.”

“Yeah, I don’t recall asking about that.” Baldy does a ‘zip it’ gesture. “I call it like I see it, boys. And right now, I see the_ king_ of all daddy issues, desperately denying his attraction to men because how could _anybody_ with soooo many notches on his belt ever have a dirty little secret like that?” When he says ‘that’, Baldy jerks his head towards Billy, whose eyes start bugging out from pure, pissed off energy. “And, woof. _Awooo_. We’ve got a bingo here, folks, we are three-out-of-three, because you, kiddo—“ His hand claps on Steve’s shoulder. “Oh, you’re the sole publisher, the author, the _autobiographer _of the hard-hitting ‘daddy doesn’t love me, either’ trilogy. And you might like the ladies.” He pats Steve’s shoulder again. “I’m not saying you don’t. I mean, we’ve all got an appreciation for the fairer sex, sure, but sweet little _Nance_, or Jessica, or whoever else you’ve been rolling around under the bleachers with, they don’t hit that ‘daddy’ shaped nail on the head. They can’t give you what _daddy _never did, because they don’t have those big hands, that ‘yes sir’ baritone, that lap you can just picture yourself _bent over—“ _

Steve squawk, “Dude, what the _fuck?” _He thinks he might puke, and for the second time in the history of ever, he knows he and Hargrove are in the same boat.

“Hey, don’t get mad at me! _I_ didn’t say it.” Chrome Dome’s hands are up, the ‘don’t arrest me’ pose. “You did. With your face. And your body language. And with _every interaction_ you’ve had with your precious high school rival here, from the moment we dragged him out of that cloning pod.” The walky in his hands lets out this horrible screech, they all jump and curse, and then the chief’s voice comes in, muffled. “One moment, children.” Baldy squeezes into the front seat, muttering into the walky— “Yep. Still out here. Search party’s gone. …No, it’s—khorosho. Tell her it’s _khorosho. _KHOROSHO, DAMN IT!”

Steve stares dumbly for a minute, then squishes himself against the door on his side, not giving two shits that the frost on the window’s so cold it makes his nose want to bleed. He doesn’t wanna get within ten feet of Hargrove after what just happened—Baldy, either, come to think of it. Spending the rest of his life in some Russian dungeon, getting the shit beaten out of him every day, is slightly worse-sounding, though. _Slightly. _

He looks over, stupidly, because he’s a fucking idiot, and he sees that Billy’s looking at him, too. “… Shit.” Yanking his hood up, he turns his face back to the window. Fuck. You know what? The nutjob’s right. This really is Hell. And Chrome Dome’s whole speech about what Steve wants Hargrove to do to him is his divine punishment.

At least that’d explain why it keeps repeating over and over in his head.


End file.
